The present invention relates generally to point-of-sale scanner devices, and more particularly, to use of such devices for automatically associating and disassociating a scanner device with a shopper in an on-demand manner.
A so-called “shopping buddy” application allow shoppers to roam about a retail store or other environment with an information-transmitting device, gathering various types of information.
In one approach, a shopper goes to an in-store kiosk where a number of scanners are available. The shopper provides identifying information through the kiosk, and the shopping buddy application then assigns one of the available scanners to the shopper. Typically, a light flashes to indicate to the shopper which of the scanners he/she is to use. When a large number of scanners are available, it may be time-consuming and/or cumbersome for the shopper to locate the assigned scanner.
In another approach, a tablet-sized computing device is mounted on a shopping cart. The computing device may be equipped with a barcode scanner. The shopper provides identifying information to the computing device, and can then use the scanner to read barcodes on items as they are placed into the shopping cart.